Patriotic Thank you Gifts (Girls Camp)

If you have been reading my blog, you might mistakenly think that I don’t celebrate the 4th of July. That isn’t the case at all. It just crept up right after Girls’ Camp and in the middle of helping my SIL to get ready to move into her new house (a mile away from me, yea!). I had intended to share some of the great ideas from blogland, that I had planned to replicate (but didn’t get to this year) and tell you where I bought my fabric bunting I hang outside my house. But since the 4th is over, I may still share pictures of the tablescape I threw together at my MILs for breakfast, but what I really want to share is something patriotic we did at Girls Camp.

(I was too busy to take pictures while we were actually making these. Most of them turned out cuter than this one, but it’s all I’ve got to show you right now.)

Besides being in charge of the craft projects, I was also responsible for our Sunday “service project.” In keeping with our “NAVY” theme, we thought it would be nice to do something for real members of the Navy. There is a woman in our church who’s husband is deployed on an aircraft carrier. She told us that they don’t need a lot on their ship (they have little storage space), but really appreciate thank you’s and morale boosters. She was able to get us some video and photos (of the non-classified variety) to share with the girls in a DVD presentation. I also included some footage from Pearl Harbor, and scriptures/quotes about sacrifice. (I won’t tell you about how the DVD wouldn’t burn and why I got ZERO hours of sleep the night before I left for camp!).

We then passed out envelopes with the Thank you cards in them. We had pre-cut blue rectangles and red strips of paper, and included those and some star stickers with each card. I was glad to find thank you cards with the words “thank you” already printed on the bottom in silver at Hobby Lobby. I was trying to find rub-ons or some other way to get the words on there, but wasn’t having much luck. The strips were a pain to cut out, but were easy for the girls to assemble their homemade cards. We gave them pretty specific instructions about the kind of things to write/not write in their cards. My assistant, was hilarious modeling the wrong way to write the card. (“Dear Hottie…Hope you don’t die. My myspace is…facebook…etc.“) The girls wrote heart-felt messages to the sailors (yes, we read them for quality control), and also made these little tokens of our gratitude:

I designed and printed these labels before hand. The girls wrapped roles of lifesavers with scrapbook paper and with our custom label. We are sending enough for two units aboard the aircraft carrier. (Couldn’t manage 6000ish for everyone.)

The project gave me a greater appreciation for those who are sacrificing daily to protect us and our freedoms. Hopefully it did the same for the girls. And hopefully it will be meaningful in some small way for those sailors. God bless America!

UPDATE: For more on these projects and free printable labels, visit this post.

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Comments

Just had to stop by and see what fun and amazing things you have been making lately!! I AM LOVING the lighthouses…oh my gosh those turned out so cute! I bet you are glad girls camp is over, I know I am!! It is always so much fun but nice to be done too! Take care…